The debate over whether the Queensland Government should have offered financial incentives to lure the Scottish craft beer company to Brisbane was started by my colleague Nick Behrens, Director of QEAS:

2 Responses to Comments on BrewDog being lured to Brisbane in the Broadsheet

Great stuff and I heard both Nick and Matt being interviewed last week. I’m with Nick on this one. I fear the Queensland Government has been sold a ‘(brew)pup’ on multiple levels:

1) BrewDog’s claim to fame is that they are the ‘punks’ of the brewing industry and would really shake things up. But they are about a ‘punk’ as a Billy Idol covers at a sirromet winery on a Sunday afternoon. Fancy website (not ‘punk’); £53,686,680.00 equity raising to date (very not ‘punk’); James Watt (founder) has degrees in economics and law, and Martin Dickie (other founder) has a degree in science (very, very not ‘punk’), and; negotiating with Governments for largess (very, very, very not ‘punk’).

2) Craft beer (noun) “a beer made in a traditional or non-mechanised way by a small brewery”. BrewDog employ 1,000 people (CUB employ 1,600). BrewDog sell their product in 50 countries, and made a £5,000,000.00 profit last year. Craft beer they are not…..or ‘punk’

3) BrewDog have already achieved penetration into retail outlets in Australia without a physical brewing presence because they are big, sophisticated, and can negotiate as equals with Woolies and Coles for access to shelf space. The local craft breweries can’t. If Government wants to throw their support behind the local craft brewing industry (why?), they would be better off addressing retail market access issues for local brewers – not underwriting a multinational in the vane hope it might crowd in other activity (just like Virgin did right??).

In 1979, ‘punk’ lost its way when the Sex Pistols sold out the genre and released the great rock and roll swindle. In 2018, the State Government sold out the local craft brew industry to some slick brewing executives pretending to be ‘punks’. Cheers to that for good policy….